


Grift: The Ballad of Calamity Smokes & the Praxus Kid

by electricchapel



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Con Artists, Gen, Prewar Cybertron
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-02
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 21:13:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/666558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricchapel/pseuds/electricchapel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Never trust a grifter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grift: The Ballad of Calamity Smokes & the Praxus Kid

This game they’re pulling? It’s called _Flopsy_. In Tarn they call it _The Drop_ and in Polyhex they call it _808s._ It doesn’t matter what happens, where you are, who’s involved, someone always ends up on the ground, splayed out after pulling some unsuspecting schmuck into the game.

This schmuck? They’re called the _Mark_.

Rule number one is you never _ever_ get attached to your mark. What that means is no matter how blue the optics are or how big the smile or how posterbot of a fucking dimple in their cheek strut they have, no one goes back to check on them. Break that rule, you risk everything.

Point is, they’re playing a game of Flopsy. They’re fucked, they’ve got nowhere to go. Smokescreen needs bail money for next week’s big heist and he’s got fuck-all in his account. Swindle needs money for tonight’s game and this is their only option. They could pull a _Rotary Brain_ but they don’t have a map and they don’t have the fucking time to check in and out of a relinquishment clinic.

Flopsy, they decide, it is.

Time’s a tick-tick-ticking and they’re fucking burning strobe light. Daylight.

And Smokescreen used to be such a nice kid.

They play a quick round of Patience—not the one with cards, it’s the one where they stare at each other until Swin grins at him and asks, “For me, yeah? Come on, Tex’ll love you for it, dollface. Me an’ Tex, we’ll love you for it.”

Three fucking stellar cycles ago, Tex and Swin convince him to throw some thin datapads off the side of the Point Monument in Simanzi with stupid slag written on them. Things that Smokescreen used to tell himself when he was trying to power down. Things like ‘ _They didn’t fire me. I quit_ ,’ or ‘ _You’re going to kill me when you figure it out_.’ Or his favorite, ‘ _You are being deceived._ ’

And Smokescreen used to have a future and everything. Now he’s turning two-bit cons with a mech who has more optics than morals. He swears he used to be a nice guy. He was prime fucking courtship material back when he was still in Praxus, back when he was still working on his fellowship. This was all back when he used to be able to see color. Now, well.

Now he’s got a different kind of luck.

They’re outside of a bar, some no-name shack in the middle of the Blue Light District in Monacus. Just them, a bag and the finishing touch: Swindle’s fist right against his cheek, cracking his optic.

The things he does for credits.

They wait around. Swin mills by the entrance, tries to peg a schmuck, a mark that’s so overcharged he can’t fucking drive a straight line. They don’t want a dependable frame, none of the big trucks ever pull out fast enough and if they do bump into him, they spend the next fucking forever with Smokescreen in their lap and crying big fat tears of optic cleanser. And Smokey? Smokey always tells them the same thing.

“Don’t cry.” He tells these big fat trucks with their big fat tears, “Don’t cry you look fat when you cry.”

He swears he used to be a nice kid.

Tonight the mark Swindle picks out is—like fucking always—a speedster. Fresh out of the pub and he’s steaming, optics on the fritz he’s so fucking overcharged. It’s either going to be a good game or Smokescreen will end up concussed and missing a neck cable. That’s why he always makes Swin play the Drop when they’re in Kaon. Those fucking Kaon mechs and their fucking fingers, they’ll stick those things anywhere.

But this speedster, he’s easy on the optics. The scheme is nice, blues and whites a bit of orange for contrast. And Speedy, he transforms, his tires squeal as he peels out.

Showtime.

Smokescreen chews the end of his smoke, loosens up and limbers out. He stretches a little, bounces on his heels to get ready and then he lets this mech speed up close. And Smokescreen?

Smokescreen lets himself tuck a little, tries to keep his doors out of his as much as he can and he rolls. He rolls for it, this fucking scam, right over the hood of this speedster. He feels his chevron scrape this mech’s windshield and when he hits the ground and crumples, he tells himself that was a pretty good flop. Sure, there’s an actual shooting pain up his side but that’s because he’s just slammed his hip into the ground and one of his doors is pinned under him. Not his best flop but better than that time in Iacon.

Swin plays his part, makes a giant ruckus and throws himself toward Smokescreen. He looks like he’s about to start grinning but Smokescreen glares at him before groaning pathetically. His fucking door _, fuck_.

The speedster he doesn’t peel out, he transforms and gasps and looks like he’s about to just drop dead. His knees turn in, his shoulders shake. In short, he’s two words away from a full-blown nervous break. Swin starts in with the histrionics not long after Speedy comes over and covers his mouth like he’s about to purge on them.

If he gets purged on, he’s calling it quits. Time in the slammer he’ll do but the second a mech purges on him? He’ll scram.

“Oh _Primus!”_ Smokescreen moans out, rolling and dazedly staring up at the other mech, optic flickering for added affect.

“Holy Primus, I am so sorry! I didn’t see him, oh fuck. Oh fuck, oh _fuck_. I’m so sorry, I’m—is he okay? Are you okay?” Speedster babbles, hysterical while Swindle is screaming over the din for a medic, a copper. Anyone.

“My Endura—oh holy shit! My _Endura, you hit my baby!”_ Swindle is all but screaming this and Smokescreen wants to punch him in the fucking cheek strut. That fucker had _promised_ , no more of this stupid shit with the Conjunx stuff, none of that.

Rule number two. Smokescreen had forgotten rule number two: Never trust a grifter.

So while Swindle is having a small histrionic fit about the way Smokescreen is curled up on the ground their mark is looking around and starting to panic.

“I’m sorry! No! Shut up—I mean. Look, hey—Look.  We don’t have to call the cops, mech. We don’t have to do that, that’s alright. You and me, we can settle this here. I mean, uh. Can he move? Can he get up? Is he alright?” Speedy asks and Smokescreen lets himself sit up, slurring and groaning and letting some spittle drip out of the corner of his mouth.

He could have been an actor. He could have been something. A fucking contender.

He’d like to thank the Academy.

Swindle looks enraged, looks about two seconds away from punching this other mech. Swindle really deserves that leading actor award they’d been talking about. He’s great at this part.

“Settle? You want me to _settle?_ Let me tell you something about _settling_ , sweetspark, I’m going to take you to—to the highest power I can find. I’ll have you settled into a fuckin’ cellblock, you fucking lush! You—he could have died and you’re asking me to _settle_?”

“Sir! Sir, please, you don’t understand. I didn’t—I didn’t even fucking see him, Primus. He just. Okay, look, I can’t have you calling the filth on me. You call the filth and I’m fucked. Listen, okay. Here, how about I give you all the creds I’ve got on me? Yeah, I’ve got like three thousand shanix on me I can hand it over. Just—just please. Please don’t call the filth.” Speedy pleads and his optics are starting to well up.

“Don’t cry,” Smokescreen says through his mouthful of energon, spitting out onto the ground and wiping the corner of his mouth.  He hates the sweet pills he has to keep tucked away between his dentae and the inside of his cheek. The slag that oozes out is fucking disgusting.

“Oh, thank Primus. Oh, sweetie. Oh, sweet sugar, _darling_!” Swindle cries and hugs Smokescreen, petting his helm and fingers the little dip where he punched earlier.

He’s really hamming it up tonight.

“See? _See_? He’s okay, he’s fine. Let me just give you the money.”

Swindle and Smokescreen stare and finally Swindle nods.

“Fine. Three thousand shanix, no more and no less.” He puts his hand out and taps his palm, looking imperious. It takes the mech a couple of seconds but he counts it out and nods nervously as he wrings his hands together while Swindle double counts it all.

“Ninety-eight, ninety-nine. Three thousand. Alright, fine. Get out of here and I won’t fucking get the filth, you overcharged piece of trash.” Swindle tuts, tucks the money into his subspace before he turns to look down at Smokescreen, stroking his forehead.

When the mark drives off after a while, Smokescreen waits and finally. Finally, he stands up, stretches and rubs at his chevron, shifts a little and checks out the damage.

“Why were you so off script tonight? Me, your Conjunx? Come on, Swin, you fuckin’ promised you’d leave that slag out of there.”

“Oh, come off it Smokey. We got three thousand, that’s enough for the game tonight. And what I win—“

“Correction: what you _steal,”_

“Semantics, whatever. What I win, steal, whatever tonight will definitely be enough for bail. See, I told you it’d all work out. Three thousand is pretty good for the first flop of the night.”

“Fuck you, my chevron.” Smokescreen spits, rubbing at it and trying to untwist it.

Smokescreen used to be _such a nice kid_. He had a future, dreams. He was going to be something. He had fucking morals.

Now all he has is a criminal record.  


End file.
